Poetry Chaikhana Sacred Poetry from Around the World

Muslim / Sufi 12th Century	About Farid ud-Din Attar Timeline (1120? - 1220?)
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English version by Raficq Abdulla Original Language Persian/Farsi	Invocation
Commentary by Ivan M. Granger Themes   Light   Mountain   Night       Recommended Books The Conference of the Birds, Translated by Afkham Darbandi / Translated by Dick Davis Conference of the Birds: A Seeker's Journey to God, Translated by Rustom Pestonji Masani The Conference of the Birds: The Selected Sufi Poetry of Farid ud-Din Attar, Translated by Raficq Abdulla The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry, Translated by Peter Lamborn Wilson / Translated by Nasrollah Pourjavady The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia, with Lectures by Inayat Khan, Translated by Coleman Barks More >>	We are busy with the luxury of things. Their number and multiple faces bring To us confusion we call knowledge. Say: God created the world, pinned night to day, Made mountains to weigh it down, seas To wash its face, living creatures with pleas (The ancestors of prayers) seeking a place In this mystery that floats in endless space. God set the earth on the back of a bull, The bull on a fish dancing on a spool Of silver light so fine it is like air; That in turn rests on nothing there But nothing that nothing can share. All things are but masks at God's beck and call, They are symbols that instruct us that God is all.     -- from The Conference of the Birds: The Selected Sufi Poetry of Farid ud-Din Attar, Translated by Raficq Abdulla Amazon.com
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Commentary by Ivan M. Granger

Notice the way Attar, in this selection from the beginning of the Conference of the Birds, describes "this mystery that floats in endless space" and how it ultimately "rests on nothing there." This could just as easily be a Buddhist statement or from the Hindu nondualist tradition. Many deep mystics describe an awareness of the emptiness or ghost-like nature of the manifest world. This isn't a philosophical conceptualization, but a direct experience. There is only a seeming reality. In deep communion, the universe experienced by the senses is finally recognized as empty, void, "nothing there."

But this is not as bleak as it might at first sound. Within that nothingness (or no-thing-ness) is a radiant, formless, fullness. This is the true Reality that underlies the seeming reality of surface experience. "All things are but masks at God's beck and call, / They are symbols that instruct us that God is all." The apparrently tangible reality, though ultimately recognized as being empty, is a mask; it still reveals something to us of the Face beneath. Surface experiences can still offer hints or "symbols" of the deeper Reality that underlies and is the true Self of all existence.

When you see the mask for what it is, the illusion is broken and the game is over. The mask falls and the Face reveals itself. And what a smile awaits you!

Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2008 by Ivan M. Granger.
All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.